SNL returns LIVE - sorta...
 

Cera to host Saturday Night Live at the UCB Theater
Nov 14, 2007, 03:39 PM | by Nicole Sperling

Categories: Strike, TV Biz

New SNL shows may be gone from your Saturday night TV line-up, but if you are a lucky resident of New York City you can see the crew perform live at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater this Saturday with Superbad star Michael Cera hosting. Seems that the SNL cast has decided to not let the writers' strike dull their comic abilities and will improv different skits live. Cera, who is currently in New York filming Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist for Sony Pictures, was contacted directly by SNL and UCB member Amy Poehler to see if he was interested in joining in. He won't be meeting with the cast until a few hours before the show, so his previous improv skills will definitely be tested.

Just checked the UCB site and tix are sold out. Would have loved to go. Thanks for posting this though.

According to their schedule, the cast of "30 Rock" will be there on Monday night to do a live performance of the show. Advance tix are sold out, but limited tix will be available at the door.

Hopefully, the cast tapes this and it gets released on DVD or shown on something like Comedy Central as a special. Is improv a violation of WGA rules?

Since improv has no writers it shouldn't be a violation. ABC could clean up with Whose Line Is It Anyway right now if they still had the show on the air.

It's interesting that in order to keep their comedic skills sharp they are doing something that Lorne Michaels would flog them for doing on the show. I know most of the performers have improv backgrounds, but that's something I've always thought was odd. Michaels' loves improv performers but hates improv.

I'm almost sure that a video of these performances will be available on the internet soon after they are performed.

Which raises the question -- what about Curb Your Enthusiasm? Of course, the season's over now, but I wonder if it could still be produced through a writer's strike.

What are the chances that this will wipe the floor with your average SNL episode as of late? 97-98%?

Hopefully Horatio will show up so they can do an improv version of Carol.

larry david said in an interview that there is a small script written for each episode that just outlines the scenes a bit.

Review of the show

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/34825